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illiamstown 



— AND 



Williams College. 



WILLIAMSTOWN 



AND 



WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 



BY 






NT h: egleston, 



1) 



WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. 
1884. 



/ 2.7 <P/ ^ 



^ 



J 






JUDI) & DETWEILER, PRINTERS, 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

First Settlement in the Hoosac Valley .... 3 

CHAPTER II. 

Ancestry and Early Life of Ephraim Williams ... 7 

CHAPTER III. 

Colonel Williams' Military Career . . . . 10 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Beginning of the College ...... 16 

CHAPTER V. 

The Establishment of the College ..... 24 

CHAPTER VI. 

Threatened Removal of the College • • • • • 35 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Character and Administration of the College 

CHAPTER VI II. .J 

Past and Present ........ 

CHAPTER IX. 

Neighboring Attractions ....... 65 

CHAPTER X. 

Present Cliaracter and Condition of the College . . 70 



39 



57 






DR. liolKlNS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



A considerable portion of the present book was published 
in Harper's Monihlij Magazine a few years ago. The interest 
taken in that publication has seemed to warrant its repro- 
duction in the present form. In giving it this shape, how- 
ever, which by the kind consent of the Messrs. Harper, he 
is enabled to do, the author has taken occasion to enlarge 
materially the original publication, and tlius give it addi- 
tional value as a trustworthy record of the growth of one 
of the most beautiful of our New England towns, and of 
one of its best seats of learning. 



o 



CHAPTER I. 

First Settlement in the Hoosao Valley. 

Williamstown, or West Hoosnck, as it was ai first called 
from the river which gives character to the region, was born 
in war and cradled in the wilderness. Its early history is 
connected with the final struggle of France and England 
for the possession of the American continent. Its founder 
was prominent as a leader in one of those expeditions which 
the English colonists projected, and which resulted in the 
final vanquishmcnt of the French power in America. But 
previous to those final and decisive undertakings, the scene 
of his active labors had been upon the border line of the 
Colonial settlements, a wilderness region, which was for a 
long time the theater of many a bloody and savage foray. 
It was in such a condition of things, and in such a region , 
where the lurking presence of the Indian was a source of 
constant dread, that the foundations of Williamstown were 
laid. 

The rapidity with which the early settlers of New England 
spread themselves over a wide reach of territory is some- 
what surprising. Few as they were, Eastern Massachusetts 
was too strait for them, and in less than a score of years 
they had pushed through the intervening wilderness a hun- 
dred miles, and established themselves in the valley of the 
Connecticut at Windsor, Wet licrs field, Hartford, and Spring- 
field. Gradually other settlements were made along that 
attractive valley, from Saybrook as far as Northfield. " It 
was not long," says Cotton INIather, '' before the Massachuset 
Colony was become like a hive overstocked with bees, and 
many of the new inhabitants entertained thoughts of swarm- 
ing into plantations extended further into the country. 
* * The fame of Connecticut River, a long, fresh, rich 
river, had made a little Nilus of it, in the expectation of 

3 



4 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

the good people about the Massachuset Bay, whereupon 
many of the planters, belonging especially to the towns of 
Cambridge, Dorchester, Watertown, and Roxbury, took up 
resolutions to travel an hundred miles westward from those 
towns for a further settlement upon this famous river." 

But it was nearly a century before the westward-moving 
tide reached the next valley, that of the Housatonic and the 
Hoosac, although by that time there were more than 300,000 
people within the settled portions of Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut. Not only was the intervening wilderness a barrier 
to the further progress of migration toward the West, but 
there was a dispute between the English and the Dutch as 
to the boundary between Massachusetts and New York, 
which served to deter settlers for a long time from ventur- 
ing to seek homes in that direction. A barrier, however, of 
a more formidable character was tlie fear of the Indians. 

The early relations of the colonists of New England to 
the Indians were those of peace and amity. The account 
of them forms a beautiful chapter in our colonial history. 
But these amicable relations were soon disturbed. As ship 
after ship followed the Mayflower, and poured its living cargo 
upon the soil of New England, and the Whites spread them- 
selves over their fairest hunting and fishing grounds, the 
Indians naturally became jealous of those who seemed to 
be crowding them from their homes. Their lands, though 
they had been parted with voluntarily, and at a price satis- 
factory to them at the time, were yet parted with. They 
saw themselves dispossessed forever. Nor was it pleasant 
for them to see the threatened predominance of anotlier 
race, where they had been so long the undisputed lords of 
the soil. It was an easy thing for the natural feeling of 
jealous}'^ to be converted into suspicion, and then into hate. 
And this was made the easier by the incitements furnished 
by the French colonists of Canada. From the time of the 
first settlements almost, there had been a strife between Eng- 
land and France for the possession of the new continent. 
As the colonies grew in population and strength, they shared 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 5 

to 11 large extent the feelings of the j)ai'ent countries. Tak- 
ing advantage of the disturbed feeling of the Indians to- 
ward the English, the French entered into alliance with 
them, and stimulated them to o^jen hostility. 

There were two natural routes of approach to the English 
settlements from the direction of Canada. One was by the 
Connecticut River ; the other was down Lake Champlain 
and tlie Hudson, until the valley of the Hoosac was reached, 
twenty miles aljove All)any, tlien eastward along this valley 
and that of the Deertield, which tends in the same direction. 
By either of those routes it was comparatively easy for the 
French and Indians to make descents upon the colonies and 
harass them. This they did through a long series of years. 
For nearly a century life on the borders of the English 
settlements was one of almost constant fear. The stories of 
sudden attack, of the burning of dwellings and of whole 
villages, of death by the tomahawk, of death on the march 
through pathless woods in winter, as the victims of these 
assaults were taken into captivity, form a large portion of our 
earl^^ liistorv. 

On the breaking out of war afresh between England and 
France in 1744, Massachusetts felt obliged to take additional 
measures for the defense of her exposed northern and west- 
ern borders. 

" At the declaration of war," says General Hoyt, " many 
Indians who had been active in the former war resided 
about the frontiers on the Connecticut, as well as at the fish- 
ing stations on that river. By a friendly intercourse many 
had become known to the English settlers, and a kind of 
attachment liad been created, which it was hoped would 
operate as a check to their ferocity in a future war. But 
their ardor for plunder and carnage overcame their apparent 
feelings of amity ; and finding an o})portunity now pre- 
sented for gratifying their inclinations, they suddenly left 
their stations and repaired to Canada to join the hostile 
tribes in that ciuarter. * * Perfectly acquainted with the 
topography of the country on the frontiers of the colonies, 
they were employed during the war not only on predatory 



6 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

incursions of their own, but as guides to more distant In- 
dians." * 

Accordingly, a new line of forts and block -houses was 
built from Fort Dummer, on the Connecticut, near the 
boundary of New Hampshire, to the western border of Mas- 
sachusetts. Among these were Fort Shirley, in Heath, 
named from the distinguished Governor Shirley ; Fort Pel- 
liam, in Rowe, and Fort Massachusetts. There were also 
block-houses in Bornardston and Coleraine, and small works 
at Pontoosuc, now Pittsfield, as well as at Stockbridge and 
Sheffield. Fort Massachusetts, the westernmost of these forts, 
and the strongest, as from its more exposed position it needed 
to be, was erected in the valley of the Hoosac, near where 
that stream breaks through the lofty mountain barrier 
which separates Massachusetts and Vermont from New York. 

Through this gateway which nature had provided, the 
French and their Indian allies, if unopposed, could make 
their way, as they had done, to the important towns of Deer- 
field, Hadley, Northampton, and Westfield on the east, or go 
southward through the valleys of Berkshire, lately begun to 
be settled, and threaten all that region, and Connecticut 
beyond. 

The superintendence of the erection and the command of 
the new line of forts were intrusted to Captain Ephraim 
Williams, his headquarters being at the one farthest west, 
which was named Fort Massachusetts. This fort was located 
in a beautiful meadow in the valley of the Hoosac, which is 
here narrowed to a quarter of a mile in width by the tower- 
ing mass of Saddleback or Graylock on the south, and the 
Clarksburg and Stamford mountains on the north. 

The fort was built of logs, and surrounded with an in- 
closure of pickets nearly a hundred rods in extent, made of 
squared ][)osts driven into the ground so as to make an im- 
pervious barrier. It was mounted with a few swivels at the 
best, had a garrison seldom numbering a hundred men, and 
was defensible against musketry alone. 



* Hoyt's Indian Wars. Hon. Joseph White ; Alumni Address. 



CHAPTER II. 

Ancestry and Early Life of Williams. 

Ephraim Williams was a descendant, in the tliird gener- 
ation, from the Puritan, Robert Williams, who is supposed 
to have removed from Norwich, in England, and settled in 
Roxbury, Mass. He died, at an advanced age, in 1G93. He 
left three sons, Samuel, Isaac, and Stephen. 

Captain Isaac Williams, tlie second son, was born in 1638, 
and removed, while yet a young man, to Cambridge village, 
which afterwards became the town of Newton. He was 
chosen a deacon of tlie churcli in that town, when it was 
first constituted, in 1664. He died in 1707, leaving his 
homestead and the larger part of his property to his youngest 
son, Ephrainr Williams, the father of the founder of the col- 
lege. 

Colonel Ephraim Williams, senior, was born at Newton, 
October 21, lOOl. He married p]lizabeth Jackson; the 
daughter of Abraham Jackson, only son of John Jackson, 
who was the first settler of Newton. 

Ephraim, their eldest son, the Captain Williams of Fort 
Massachusetts, and afterwards Colonel Williams, founder of 
the college which bears his name, was born at Newton, Feb- 
ruary 24th, 1715. Soon after the birth of a second son, 
February, 1718, his mother died. The two sons, Ephraim 
and Thomas, were at once taken by their grandfather, 
Abraham Jackson, to his own home. He adopted them as 
his children, and gave them a good education. At his 
death, in 1740, he left them two liundrcd pounds, saying 
that "he had already spent considerable sums for their 
bringing uj) and education." 

Abraham Jackson was a man of the Puritan stamp, dis- 
tinguished for his intelligence, integrity, and public spirit. 
He was a most useful citizen and an honorable man. He 

7 



8 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

was one of the first school committee of Newton. The rec- 
ords of the town bear an interesting proof of his liberality, 
setting forth that on the 14th of May, 1701, he gave one 
acre of land " for the setting the school-house upon, and 
the enlarging the burying-i)lace, and the convenience of the 
training-place." " It is quite apparent," says one historian, 
" that the first sprouts of Williams College were germinated 
in the family of Abraham .Jackson, the son of the first set- 
tler of Newton." However that may be, Abraham Jackson 
is closely connected with the college through the liberality 
of Nathan Jackson, his great-grandson, to whom it is in- 
debted for the building occujiied by the Lyceum of Natural 
History, and for the house and grounds occupied by the 
president. 

As he approached the age of manhood, young Williams 
found scope for his enterprise and love of adventure upon 
the ocean. He made several voyages across the Atlantic, 
visiting England, Spain, and Holland. In these voyages, 
and in his intercourse with people of the old world, he be- 
came accomplished in manners, and acquired a knowledge 
of character and a fund of information which well prepared 
him for the distinguished career of his later life. He con- 
tinued his life of travel until about the age of twenty-five. 

Nearly at this period of his life his father had removed, 
with his family, to Stockbridge, then an Indian town. The 
provincial government, for the purpose of civilizing and 
christianizing the Indians whose home was along the valle}^ 
of the Housatonic, had removed the white settlers from a 
portion of the territory nearly six miles square, and had 
appropriated it to the exclusive possession of the Indians, 
reserving only a small portion for the use. and subsistance 
of the missionary, Rev. John Sargeant, and four families of 
whites of the best character, who were sent to aid the mis- 
sionary and to benefit the Indians by their example and 
instruction. One of the four families selected for this work 
was that of the father of Col. Williams. At the earnest so- 
licitation of his father, the son now relinquished his sea- 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. U 

faring life and settled at Stockbridge. He soon became 
prominent and influential in the little settlement, and was 
frequently its representative and agent at the General Court. 
He was thus engaged, when, on the outbreak of the war be- 
tween Great Britain and France, his well-known character 
for enterprise and sagacity caused the Provincial Govern- 
ment to entrust him, at the early age of thirty years, with 
the erection and command of the line of frontier forts, of 
which we have already spoken.* 

* Durfee's History of Williams College. Genealogy of the Williams Family. 



o 



CHAPTER III. 

Williams' Military Career. 

The trust thus committed to Captain Williams he dis- 
charged with utmost fidelity and complete success. Bold, 
active, and vigilant, he shared with his men the privations 
and dangers of the service, and exerted his best powers in 
the public defense. Under his vigorous management 
scouts, accompanied by dogs trained for scenting the sav- 
ages, were kept passing and repassing continually alongthe 
line of forts in order to give prompt notice of the approach 
of any foe^ It was a hazardous service which they had to 
perform, and as an inducement to engage in it, the Provin- 
cial Government offered a bounty of £30 for every Indian 
scalp. 

In the spring of 174G, Williams, leaving Fort Massachu- 
setts in charge of another, enlisted a company and joined 
the forces which had assembled at Albany for the purpose 
of invading Canada by the Avay of Lake Champlain. The 
invasion, however, was abandoned, the troops being with- 
drawn for the defense of Boston, and Williams returned to 
his frontier command. During his absence a successful as- 
sault upon the fort was made by a combined force of Frencli 
and Indians, nearly one thousand strong, under the com- 
mand of General Vaudreuil. 

The fort was in charge of Sergeant, afterwards Lieutenant- 
Colonel John Haw^ks. He had just sent off thirteen men, un- 
der the surgeon. Dr. Thomas Williams, to Deerfield, on the 
Connecticut River, for the purpose of procuring ammunition 
and supplies. Their departure left only twenty -two effective 
men in the garrison. But, notwithstanding the great dis- 
parity of his force, the brave commander resolved to defend 
his post to the last extremity. For twenty-eight hours, with 
small arms only, he held the enemy at bay, and by means 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 11 

of his sharp-shooters inflicted severe losses upon them. At 
length, his ammunition being nearly exhausted, he reluct- 
antly capitulated, and u})on very favorable terms. The arti- 
cles of capitulation, however, were violated the next day by 
the Frencli general. Half the captives were handed over to 
the charge of tlic angry Indians, who, nevertheless, treated 
them more kindly than usual, perhaps touched by the 
bravery they had displayed. The garrison were taken to 
Crown Point, and from there to Canada, and thence re- 
deemed.* 

The fort was destroyed, but was rebuilt the following 
year, and its defense was gallantly maintained, though it 
continued to be the object of frequent attacks, until the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle brought a cessation of hostilities. 
During one of these attacks Williams himself narrowly es- 
ca})ed capture. 

On the 2d of August, 1748, four men, being at some dis- 
tance from the fort, were fired ui)on. Captain Williams 
went to their rescue with a company of thirty men. After 
driving the enemy about forty rods, he was suddenly at- 
tacked by a body of fifty Indians in ambuscade, who en- 
deavored to cut off his retreat. By a quick movement, 
however, he regained the fort with the loss of only one man, 
with two wounded. Immediately a company of three hun- 
dred Indians and thirty French advanced and opened fire 
u[)on the fort. After continuing their attack for two hours 
without success, they retired with their killed and wounded. 

The peace which followed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 
released Williams awhile from his military duties, and in 
1749 he took up his residence in the Connecticut jvalley, 
making his home at Hatfield, and a portion of the time 
with his brother Thomas, at Deerfield. His able and suc- 
cessful management of the border defenses had gained him 
great reputation. This, with his unusual dignity of person 
and accomplished manners, gave him ready admission to 

*Hoyt: Indian Wars. 



]2 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

the highest and most influential circles, and brought him 
into intimate relations with the leading men of the western 
portion of the commonwealth, such men as John Wortli- 
ington, of Springfield ; Joseph Hawlev, of Northampton; 
Oliver Partridge and Israel Williams, of Hatfield, and Jon- 
athan Ashley, of Deerfield ; men who had no superiors in 
the Province. A brilliant political career was now appar- 
ently opening before him. But a change in the course of 
public affairs soon brought a change in his prospects and 
remanded him to military life. 

At the breaking out of war again in the continued struggle 
of the French and English for the supremacy, the danger 
of invasion through the gateway of the Hoosac was greater 
than before. When, therefore, news came that the Indians 
had made an attack uj)on Dutch Hoosac — a settlement within 
the jurisdiction of New York, but only ten miles from Fort 
Massachusetts — and that a small party had even penetrated 
the colony, and gone as far south as Stockbridge, spreading 
great alarm along their course, the colonial government saw 
at once the necessity of taking prompt measures for the pro- 
tection of the settlers. The forts on the frontier were im- 
mediately strengthened, and some new ones built. 

Williams, who had successfully defended the frontier dur- 
i ng the previous hostilities, was again put in charge, with 
the rank of major. The next year, however, he was relieved 
of his command at the fort, apd placed at the head of the 
Hampshire Regiment — part of a force of five thousand men 
raised by the colonies for the purpose of taking the offensive 
against the French, and capturing Crown Point, one of the 
most important fortresses held by them. The attack upon 
Crown Point was part of a comprehensive plan to make a 
vigorous assault upon the French at different points. It 
embraced simultaneous expeditions to Louisburg, Quebec, 
Crown Point, Niagara, and Fort du Quesne. 

The expedition to Crown Point was put in charge of Colonel 
Johnson. While encamped at the southern extremity of 
Lake George, waiting for ammunition and transports. Baron 



WILLJANrSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 1 o 

Dieskuu, with a largo force of French, Canadians, and In- 
dians, arrived in that vicinity, with the purpose of attacking 
Fort Edward, a garrison near by. Johnson, learning of the 
presence of Dieskau's force, at once sent out a party of one 
thousand soldiers and two hundred Indians to intercept the 
enemy. Colonel AVilliams was appointed to the command. 
He had proceeded but a little way on his march, however, 
when he found himself almost surrounded by the French 
and Indians, who had left Fort Edward on one side and 
were advancing upon Johnson's army, and now were lying 
in ambush awaiting his a})proach, of which they had doubt- 
less been informed by their scouts. It was a wild wooded 
region, and Williams', path was through a deep glen. All 
at once the yells of the savages and volleys of musketry broke 
upon his ear, and revealed his danger, while the sudden 
surprise threw his men into confusion. Calm and undaunted 
himself, Williams endeavored to get his force out of the glen, 
u})on the higher ground, where they would be less exposed, 
and could contend with the enemy upon equal terms. As 
he was doing this, standing upon a rock, or by the side of 
it, he fell, pierced througli the head by a musket-ball. 

At his fall Williams was saved from the indignity of the 
scalping-knife of his Indian foes by the considerate devotion 
of his comrades in arms, who succeeded in concealing his 
l)ody from the savages. It was subsequently buried on a 
height of ground a few rods from the spot where he fell, at 
the foot of a huge pine-tree near the road. There it lay un- 
nuirked by any other monument for nearly a century from 
the time of his death. Then, moved by the consideration 
of liis great worth and his great benefactions to the^country 
and to the cause of learning, the loving hands of the Alumni 
of the college which bears his name })laced a large pyramidal 
bowlder upon the grave of Williams, inscribed with the in- 
itials E. W., and erected also upon the rock which marks 
the spot where he fell, an enduring monument of marble. 

Thus fell in the service of his country, at the early age of 
forty years, one who had already attained great distinction, 



14 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

and was looked upon as a leader in public affairs, and who, 
had his life been prolonged, niight have risen to the high- 
est positions. He was contemporary with those who after- 
wards shone so brilliantly in the Revolutionary War. Put- 
nam was in service with him in the expedition to Crown 
Point. Washington was at the same time proving his 
capacity in the expedition against Fort Duquesne under 
Or^neral Braddock. It was onl}^ twenty years to the time 
when Washington was leading our armies in the struggle of 
the colonies for their independence. Had the life of Will- 
iams been spared till then, we may well believe that he 
would have been one of Washington's ablest and most 
trusted generals in that contest, and stood second only to 
him in the regard and affection of the people for his mili- 
tary ability and devoted patriotism. 



WILLIAM^^TOWX AND WILLIAMS COLI.IXiK. 



15 




COLONEL WILLIAMS' MONUMENT, M'.AK lAki: i;KuK(;i.; 



o 



.CHAPTER IV. 

The Beginning of the College. 

But the history of Fort Massachusetts is not yet full}^ told, 
and we must turn back to it. Its builder and commander 
had fallen, but no serious attack was made upon it subse- 
quent to his death. A lasting peace came in three years 
from the battle near Fort Edward. The French colonies on 
the north were surrendered to Great Britain. There was no 
more fear of invasions from Canada. The frontier line of 
forts no longer needed to be garrisoned for the protection of 
defenseless settlers. The soldiers could be dismissed to the 
peaceful industries of life, and the forts themselves be left 
to fade from sight, as they have done, under the slow decay 
of time. There is nothing now to mark the site of the old 
fort excei^t an elm tree, which a few persons interested in 
the histor}^ of the fort planted, not many years ago, for the 
purpose of marking a spot memorable for gallant deeds 
there wrought, and for its important connection with the 
history of our country. 

At the close of the previous war, in 1748, Williams had 
retired from his frontier post, as we have seen, and made his 
home at Hatfield, and with a brother at Deerfield. But his 
long service on the border and in command of the fort had 
given him a deep interest in that region, and in the soldiers 
and settlers with whom he had been associated in time of 
peril. The year after leaving the fort, and mainly at his 
instigation, it seems, the General Court appointed a com- 
mittee, consisting of Colonels Dwight and Choate and Oliver 
Partridge, Esq., " to survey and lay out two townships on 
tlie Iloosac River, each of the contents of six miles scjuare, 
in the best of the land, and in as regular form as may be, 
joining them together; and return a correct plat of said 

16 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 17 

townships ; and also to return tlio course and distance of 
said towns from Fort Massachusetts." 

Williams remained at Boston during the session of 1740- 
'50, urging forward the settlement of the new townships. 
As the result, on the 17th of January, 1750, a committee was 
ordered to lay out the west townsliip of Hoosac into sixty- 
three contiguous home-lots of from thirteen to fourteen 
acres, each of these home-lots carrying with it a sixty -third 
))art of the whole township. True to the original custom 
of the New England colonies, one of these lots was reservec] 
for the lirst settled minister of the new town, and another as 
a permanent fund for the sup])ort of the ministry. A third 
lot was set apart for the benetlt of schools. The committee 
were also directed to dispose of the remaining sixty lots to 
actual settlers for £G IGs. 6d. each, and " to grant as many 
lots to the soldiers of the garrison of Fort Massachusetts as 
tliey should think proi)er." A grant of one hundred and 
ninety acres in the east township was also made by the Gene- 
ral (V)Ui't to Williams himself, on condition that "he erect 
and ihiish for service, M'ithin two years, a good grist-mill 
and saw-mill on the north branch of the Hoosac River, and 
kee}) the same in good repair for twent}^ years," by which he 
became the owner of the very meadow in which Fort Massa- 
chusetts stood. 

When the west township was actually laid out, more than 
half of the lots were taken by the officers and soldiers of the 
old fort. Williams, among the rest, drew two lots, though 
these chanced to be of poor quality. The settlement of both 
townships, under the protection of the fort and one or two 
Ijluck-houses, went on rapidly. 

On his way from Deerfield to engage in the expedition 
against Crown Point, Colon el AVilliams was once more at 
Fort Massachusetts, and there met again many of his old 
comrades, several of whom had become settlers in the new 
township which he had secured for them four or five years 
before. Some of these ohl companions in arms put tliem- 
selves again under his leadershi[) on the march to Grown 
3 



18 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

Point. Williams seems to have had some foreboding that 
he was not to return from this expedition, but was looking 
upon the old fort and the fair fields of the Hoosac around 
it for the last time. It is said that as he parted from the 
garrison he gave some intimation that, in the event of his 
death, he should leave them some further evidence of his 
esteem. Being taken ill as his regiment halted for a little 
at Albany, he was reminded of the uncertainty of life, and 
that the purpose entertained for some time past of making 
a final disposition of his property had not been carried out. 
He proceeded, therefore, at once to make his will. In this 
instrument, after making some minor bequests to relatives 
and friends, he declares : " It is my will and pleasure that 
all of the residue of my real estate, not otherwise disposed 
of, be sold by my executors, or the survivor of them, witliiii 
five years after an established peace (which a good God soon 
grant!), according to their discretion, and that the same be 
put out at interest on good security, and that the interest 
money yearly arising therefrom, and the interest arising 
from my just debts due to me, and not otherwise disposed 
of, be improved by said executors, and by such as they shall 
appoint trustees for the charity aforesaid after them, for tlie 
support and maintenance of a free school in the township 
west of Fort Massachusetts (commonl}^ called West Township) 
forever, provided said township fall within the jurisdiction 
of the province of Massachusetts Bay, and continue under 
that jurisdiction, and provided also the Governor of said 
})rovince, with the Assembly of said province, shall (when 
a suitable number of inhabitants are settled there) incor- 
porate the same into a town by the name of Williamstown." 

The will then goes on to make other dispositions of tlie 
property if these conditions are not complied with. 

The will is dated July 22, 1755. Williams fell on the Sth 
of the following September. 

Such was the beginning of the College, or the Free School 
as it was originally. Looking back upon the act of Colonel 
Williams in making such a disposition of his property as 



WIIJJAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS ((JLLEOE. 1I> 

he did, an eminent alumnus of the college thus writes: "As 
Williams liimself sat in his sick-chamber at Albany, and 
laid aside the i)en with which he had made sure his last act 
of good will to his old neighbors and friends in the Hoosac 
valley, and contemplated its beneficent results in the higher 
intelligence and well-being of their posterity in the future, 
could the veil have been lifted, and his eye have run down 
the line of the coming years till it rested on these times, 
and marked the results as they now stand revealed to us ; 
could he have seen the little hamlet of eleven settlers give 
place to the populous village, and the broad cultivated town, 
and the frontier which he had defended so well stretching 
onwards to the lakes, across the western valley to the Pa- 
cific shore; could he have beheld the free school expanding 
into the college, and bestowing a liberal culture upon sixty- 
five generations of generous youth, sending them forth 
each successive year equipped to do the work of men 

' In the world's broad field of battle,' — 

could he have caught a glimpse of the maple grove and 
the haystack beside it, and the u})lifted hands of those 
youthful heroes of a new crusade, pleading for a fresh baptism 
upon the churches, and have seen the swift messengers of 
peace running to all lands and publishing salvation, and 
the darkness lifting, and the day breaking, and heard the 
morning song, would he not also, with a full heart, have 
exclaimed : 

" It is well ! Tiie ways of God are justified. I see there 
is a higher prize ! I see there is a brighter glory ! It is 
well. Though my sun go down at noon; though I fall in 
the first shock of battle, and others lead on to victory and 
win the soldier's prize ; though my poor body sleep long 
years in the deep woods, and no kindly tear fall, and no 
friendly foot press the spot, yet I shall not be forgotten. The 
men of other ages and far-off lands shall repeat my name 
with a blessing; it shall live with Mills on the ocean, with 
Hall on the ' burning strand ;' the monumental marble shall 



20 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

speak it, and the sweet valley Avhicli I love, and the ever- 
lasting mountains around, shall guard and preserve it for- 
ever ! "* 

In an address delivered before the Adelphic Union So- 
ciety of the college, in 1837, the distinguished scholar and 
orator, Edward Everett, in his own way thus personifies 
Colonel AVilliams in that early day : 

" My friends, (we may conceive he would say to a group 
of settlers gathered around old Fort Massachusetts, on some 
fit occasion, not long before his marching towards the place 
of rendezvous,) — my friends, your hardships I am aware 
are great. I have witnessed, I have shared them. The 
hardships incident to the opening a new country are always 
severe. They are heightened in our case by the constant 
danger in which we live from the savage enemy. At present 
we are rather encamped than settled. We live in block- 
houses ; we lie upon our arms by night, and, like the Jews 
who returned to build Jerusalem, we go to work by day 
with implements of industry in one hand, and the weapons 
of war in the other. Nor is this the worst. We have been 
bred up in the populous settlement on the coast, where the 
school-house and the church are found at the center of every 
village. Here, as yet, we can have neither. I know these 
things weigh upon you. You look on the dark and im- 
penetrable forests in which you have made an opening, and 
contrast it with the pleasant villages where you were born 
and passed your early years — where your parents arc yet 
living, or where they' have gone to their rest, and you can- 
not suppress a painful emotion. You are more especially, 
as I perceive, somewhat disheartened at the present moment 
of impending war. But, my friends, let not your spirits 
sink. The prospect is overcast, but brighter days will come. 
In vision I can plainly foresee them. The forest disappears; 
the cornfield, the pasture, takes its place. The hill-sides are 
spotted with flocks ; the music of the water-wheel sounds in 

* Alumni address of Hon. Joseph White, 1855. 



WJLLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS ('()LLK(iK. 21 

accord willi the dasliing streuin. Your little grou}).s ol log- 
cabins swell into prosperous villages. Schools and churches, 
spring uj) in the waste; institutions for learning arise; and 
in what is now a wide solitude, libraries and cabinets un- 
fold their treasures, and observatories point their tubes to 
the heavens. 1 tell you that not all the united })0wers of 
all the French and Indians on the St. Lawrence — no, not if 
backed by all the powers of darkness, which seem at times 
in league with them, to infest this howling wilderness — will 
long prevent the valleys of the Hoosac and the Housatonic 
from becoming the abode of industry, abundance, and re- 
tinement. A century will not pass before the voice of do- 
mestic wisdom, and fireside inspiration from the vales of 
Berkshire, will be heard throughout America and E;uro])e. 
As for tlie contest impending, I am sure we shall conquer; 
if I mistake not, it is the first of a scries of events of unut- 
terable moment to all America, and even to mankind. Be- 
fore it closes, the banner of St. George will float, I am sure, 
over Diamond Rock ; and the extension of British i)Ower 
over the whole continent will be l)ut the first act of a great 
(h-ama whose catastrophe I but dimly foresee. 

" I speak of what concerns tlie whole country ; the fortune 
of individuals is wrapt in the uncertain future. For myself, 
I must own that I feel a foreboding at my heart which I can- 
not throw off. I can only sa}^, if my hour is come, (and I 
think it is not distant,) I am prepared. I have been able 
to do but little; but if Providence has no further work for 
me to perform, I am ready to be discharged from the war- 
fare. It is my purpose, before I am taken from you, to make 
a disposition of my property for the benefit of this, infant 
community. M}' heart's desire is, that in the iiicture of its 
future prospects which I behold in mental view, the last and 
best of earthly blessings shall not be wanting. I shall deem 
my life not spent in vain, though it be cut oil' to-morrow, if 
at its close I shall be accepted as the humble instrumelit of 
l)romoting the great cause of education. 

" My friends, as I am soon to join the army, we meet, 



22 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

many of us, perhaps for the last time. I am a solitary 
branch ; I can be spared. I have no wife to feel my loss, 
no children to follow me to the grave. Should I fall by the 
tomaliawk or in front of honorable battle, on the shores of 
the stormy lake or in the infested woods, this poor body 
may want even a friendly hand to protect it from insult — 
but I must take the chances of a soldier's life. When I am 
gone you will find some proof that my last thoughts were 
with the settlers of Fort Massachusetts; and, perhaps, at 
some future day, should my desire to serve you and your 
children not be disappointed, my humble name Avill not be 
forgotten in the public assembly, and posterity will bestow 
a tear on the memory of Ephraim Williams." 



WILLTA^rSTOWN AND wirjJA^rs (•OrJ.KflK. 



23 




i 2 



CHAPTER V. 

The Establishment of the College. 

Colonel Williams had often been heard to lament his own 
lack of a liberal education, and it was doubtless the sense 
of Ins disadvantages on that account which prompted him to 
devote his property to the purposes of education by estab- 
lishing an institution which should be open to all who might 
seek its benefits. He thought he could bestow no greater 
fovor upon his soldier companions, wdio had become en- 
deared to him by their common toils and exposures in Fort 
Massachusetts and in campaigns on the frontier, than to 
provide for their children and those who should succeed 
them the benefits of a good education. 

The history of Colonel Williams' bequest is interesting as 
showing what fruit may come from a small seed, and the 
changed condition of things and of our ideas and estimates 
since the time that his will was made. The amount of i)rop- 
erty left by Williams would seem to any one now ridicu- 
lously small for the purpose of establishing a school of an}'- 
sort. Even at the time the bequest was made, it was so in- 
adequate to its purpose that it was only after it had been 
converted into money and carefully husbanded by the ex- 
ecutors, by being allowed to increase at compound interest 
for thirty years, that they felt warranted in attem})ting to 
})ut the contemplated school in actual operation. At length, 
in the year 1785, they ventured to apply to the Legislature 
for an act enabling them to fulfill the intention of the tes- 
tator. Thereupon an act was passed incorporating William 
Williams, Theodore Sedgwick, Woodbridge Little, John 
Bacon, Thompson J. Skinner, Israel Jones, David Noble, 
Rev. Seth Swift, Rev. Daniel Collins, persons of the highest 
distinction in Western Massachusetts, " trustees of the dona- 

24 



WILLIAMSTOWX AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 25 

tion of Ephraim Williams for maintaining a free school in 
Williamstown." 

The trustees, almost all of whom were graduates of Yale 
College, held their first meeting soon after the act of incor- 
l)oration was passed. They found the property intrusted lo 
them so insufficient for the purpose for which it was designed 
that they at once appointed three of their number a com- 
mittee to procure additional funds. At the same time they 
voted that the school should be open and free not only to 
the people of Williamstown, but to " the free citizens of th(> 
American States indiscriminately." That they were under- 
taking to establish something more than an ordinary free 
school is shown also b}^ a vote, passed at an early stage of 
their proceedings, that the building for the school should be 
constructed of bricks, and should be seventy-two feet in 
length, forty feet wide, and three stories high. As tlu\v 
went on with their work, however, the ideas of the trustees 
seem to have expanded, and the building finally erected, 
and as it stands to-day, is eighty-two feet in length, forty- 
two in width, and four stories high. It was a notable struc- 
ture for the })]ace and the time, and compares favorably now 
with many buildings of more pretentious character and more 
recent date. It is, indeed, a marvel that an edifice so solid 
and imi)ressive in a})pearance as it is to-day should have ^ 
been erected nearly a century ago, and in what was almost 
literally a wilderness. This is the building now known as 
West College. Its site overlooks the town and a large i)or- 
tion of the adjacent country, the range of vision being lim- 
ited only by the lofty hills or mountains which lift tliem- 
selves on every side. 

It is another indication of the scarcity of money then, as 
well as of a change in moral apprehension, that the trustees 
felt obliged to resort to the help of a lottery in order to X 
secure the funds needful for the erection of their cfontem- 
l)lated building. The Legislature, on tlieir aj)plication, gave 
them a grant for a lottery, and the result was an addition of 
i;l,037 18s. 2d. to their resources. With this, and a sub- 
4 



26 



WILLIAMSTOAVN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGK, 




WILMAMSTOWX ANI> WII.MAMS COLLEGK. 27 

scription of §2,000 by the residents of Williamstowii, they 
were at length enabled to erect their Ijuilding. 

The school was opened October 20, 175>1, with the Rev. 
El)enezer Fitch, a graduate of Yale College, as preceptor, 
and Mr. John Lester, as assistant. There were two depart- 
ments — a grammar school, or academy, and an English free 
scliool. In the first, the usual college studies of that day 
were taught; in the second, instruction in the common 
I'^nglish studies was given to a company of boys from the 
higher classes in the common schools of the town. The 
school was popular and successful from the beginning. 

There was no institution nearer than the colleges at Han- 
over and New Haven so attractive to those ambitious of 
learning. Young men came to it from the neighboring 
States, and even from Canada. The po})ularity of the school 
was such, indeed, that the trustees, the next year after its 
opening, sent a petition to the Legislature asking that it 
might be incorporated as a college. The petition was 
granted, and an act of incorporation, clianging the Free 
School into a College, by the name of Williams College, was 
passed on the 22d of June, 1793. By this act the trustees 
of the school, with the addition of Ilev. Stephen West, D. D., 
Henry Van Schaack, Hon. Elijah Williams, and the Presi- 
dent of the College for the time being were constituted trus- 
tees of the College. By the same act all the property belong- 
ing to the Free School was transferred to the corporation of 
the College, and a grant of four thousand dollars was also 
made from the State treasury for the purchase of a library 
and philosophical ap[)aratus. The English school was now 
discontinued, but the academy was maintained for) several 
years. 

At the first meeting of the Board of Trustees after the in- 
corporation of the College, Rev. Ebenezer Fitch, who had 
been master of the Free School, was unanimously cho.sen 
President of the College, Rev. Stephen West, D. D., Vice- 
President, and Daniel Dewey, Secretary. It was voted that 
commencement be on the first Wednesday of September. 



28 WJLLIAMSTOWN AND WII>LIAMS COLLEGE. 

It was voted also that applicants for admission to the Col- 
lege must be " able accurately to read, parse, and construe, 
to the satisfaction of the President and tutor, A'^irgil's ^Eneid, 
Tully's Orations, and the Evangelists in Greek," or, if pre- 
ferring to become acquainted with French, " be able to read 
and pronounce, with a tolerable degree of accuracy and 
fluency, Hudson's French Scholar's Guide, Telemachus, or 
some other approved French author." 

Messrs. Skinner, Swift, and Noble Avere appointed a "com- 
mittee to counsel the President." 

Mr. Noble also received the thanks of the Board for his 
present of a bell. 

The traditional commencement dinner was also provided 
for, a vote-being passed " that a jxiblic dinner be provided 
at the next commencement, for tlie President, Trustees, and 
officers of the College, together with such other gentlemen 
as the President may invite." 

Thus the College was actually founded and set in opera- 
tion, its outward equipment being the single building now 
known as West College, and its teaching faculty consisting 
of the President and one tutor. West College combined in 
itself chapel, library, recitation rooms, studies, and dormi- 
tories, as the President combined in himself a whole body 
of professors, teaching all branches of knowledge. For 
thirty years or more recitations were held in some of the 
student's rooms, one in each class allowing liis room to be 
used for the purpose, and receiving some compensation, in 
the way of free instruction or otherwise, for keeping his 
room in a condition for such use. A room on the south 
side of West College, and embracing the second and third 
stories, served for the chapel until Griffin Hall was built 
and constructed especially with a view to furnish appropri- 
ate accommodations for a chapel and for recitations. As 
originally constructed a hall passed through West College 
from east to west. Since the building, unfortunately in 
some respects, stands quite in the public road, this hall be- 
came a convenient passageway not only for students occu- 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WJLIJAMS (•(3LLEGE. 29 

pving the building, but for all sorts of people who might 
have occasion to pass up or down the street for business or 
[)lcasure. This annoyance and disturbance of the quiet of 
the occupants led to a remodelling of the building by which 
access is had to the rooms from each end of it, but without 
there being any passage through it. 

lUit West College did not long stand alone as the outward 
embodiment of Williams College. In January, 1796, the 
Legislature supplemented its previous bounty by granting 
the College two townshi})s of land in Maine, which then be- 
longed to Massachusetts. These were sold the same year 
for about $10,000, and this sum, with $2,500 derived from 
other sources, was used the next year for the erection of East 
College. This was a brick building of nearly the same size 
as West College. It contained two recitation rooms and 
thirty-two other rooms. It stood forty-four years, but in 
LSll was l)urnt and re])laced the next year by tlie present 
i'^ast College, one story less in height, and by South College, 
which was built at tlie same time. 

The first Commencement took place in 1795, when a class 
of four graduated. Three of these were from Stockbridge, ^ 
then the largest and most important town in Western Massa- 
chusetts, and one from Lenox. The next year a class of six 
graduated. The third year there were ten, and the fourth 
year thirty. So rapidly did this College in the wilderness 
grow and prove its reason for being. In 1795 the Catalogue 
of the College contained the names of seventy-seven students, 
and there were fifty more connected with the Academy 
which was attached to the College. This catalogue is said 
to have been the first College Catalogue pul)lished jn this 
country. Yale College published a catalogue one year later, 
and other colleges soon followed the example. For many 
years these catalogues were printed as broadsides, on a single 
sheet, in handbill form. Specimens of them may now be 
seen in the cabinet of the Lyceum of Natural History, where 
doubtless they were placed because of their supposed rela- 
tionship to other natural curiosities. 



30 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

The first Commencements were held in tlie diminutive 
meeting-liouse built for religious worship in the infancy of 
the town. But this was so inconvenient and inadequate for 
the College requirements that the trustees voted to hold 
their Commencements in Pittsfield or Lanesborough unless 
the toAvn would provide a more suitable place. Before the 
next Commencement a larger building was erected by the 
ecclesiastical parish, the College contributing one hundred 
pounds towards its cost, on condition that seats should be 
reserved for students on the Sabbath, and that the College 
should have the use of the house on public days.* 

This house stood in the middle of the broad main-street, 
after the fashion of many of the older New England churches, 
and was the eastern l)order of the Park which was formed 
a few 3'ears ago. After standing more than sixty years, the 
most conspicuous object, perhaps, in the village, it was con- 
sumed by fire. The parish were then induced by liberal 
offers from the trustees to relinquish the former site, and to 
build the capacious church which now so amply and con- 
veniently accommodates the College. 

Time proveriably brings great changes. The older resi- 
dents tell us that Commencements now are very different 
from what they were in former years. In the days before 
railroads had given Williamstown easy communication with 
the outside world, or traveling shows were wont to frequent 
^ its vicinity, Commencement was the great show and attrac- 
tion of the year. All classes and occupations, old and young, 
literary and illiterate alike flocked to the scene. The old 
church, that looked down from its eminence at the west- 
ern extremity of the broad village avenue, was the focus of 
attraction. Vehicles of all descriptions, not only from the 
town, but from the surrounding country, and from quite a 
distance, brought their eager companies. The fences around 
and trees were taken possession of as hitching places for the 
waiting and feeding animals. The venders of ginger-bread, 

* Durfee's Hist. 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 31 

peanuts, candy and cakes were present witli their booths and 
stands. Barrels of cider were not wanting, and it was not 
difficult to procure a stronger drink. So, as the day wore 
on, there was often a ludicrous mixture of the literary with 
wliat had little affiliation with it. The classic language 
within doors contrasted strongly with much of the discourse 
outside, and it was an exceptional occasion if tlio day closed 
witliout some pugilistic encounters. 

Hawthorne was once, at least, an attendant upon Com- 
mencement here, and thus gives his impressions in his 
American Note-Books: 

" Wednesday, August loth, 1838. — I went to Conunence- 
ment at Williams College. At the tavern were students 
with ribbons, pink or blue, fluttering from their button- 
holes, these being the badges of rival societies. Tliere was 
a considerable gathering of people, chiefly arriving in 
wagons or buggies, some in barouches, and very few in 
chaises. The most characteristic part of tlie scene was 
where the pedlers, ginger-bread sellers, &c., were collected 
a few hundred yards from the meeting-house. There was a 
pedler there from New York State, who sold his wares by 
auction, and I could have stood antl listened to him all day 
long. Sometimes he would put up a heterogeny of articles 
in a lot, as a paper of pins, a lead-pencil, and a shaving-box, 
and knock them all down, })erhaps for nine pence. Bunches 
of lead-pencils, steel-pens, pound cakes of shaving-soap, gilt 
fmgcr-rings, bracelets, clasps, and other jewelry, cards of 
pearl buttons or steel, (' There is some steel about them, 
gentlemen, for my brother stole 'em, and I bore him out in 
it,') bundles of wooden combs, boxes of matches, sus|ienders, 
and, in short, everything — dipping his hand down into his 
wares with the promise of a wonderful lot, and producing, 
perhaps, a bottle of opodeldoc, and joining it with a lead- 
l)encil — and when he had sold several things of the same 
kind, pretending huge surprise at tinding 'just one more,' 
if the lads lingered, saying, ' I could not afford to steal tliem 
lor the price, for the remorse of conscience wouhl be worth 



32 WILLIAMSTO'U'N AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

more,' all the time keeping an eye on those who bought, 
calling for the pay, making change with silver or bills, and 
deciding on the goodness of banks ; and saying to the boys 
who climbed upon his cart, ' Fall down, roll down, tumble 
down, only get down;' and uttering everything in the queer, 
humorous recitative in which he sold his articles. Some- 
times he would jiretend that a person had bid, either bv 
word or wink, and raised a laugh thus; never losing his 
self-jiossession, nor getting out of humor. When a man 
asked whether a bill were good, 'No! do you suppose I'd 
give you good money?' When he delivered an article, he 
exclaimed, * You're the lucky man,' setting off his wares 
with the most extravagant eulogies. The people bought 
very freely, and seemed also to enjoy the fun. One little 
boy bought a shaving-box, perhaps meaning to speculate 
upon it. This character could not possibly be overdrawn ; 
and he was really excellent, with his allusion to what was 
2:)assing, intermingled, doubtless, with a good deal that was 
studied. 

"A good many people were the better or worse for liquor. 
There was one fellow, named Randall, I think, a round- 
shouldered, bulky, ill-hung devil, with a pale, sallow skin, 
black beard, and a sort of grin upon his face — a species of 
laugh, yet not so much mirthful as indicating a strange 
mental and moral twist. He was very riotous in the crowd > 
elbowing, thrusting, seizing hold of people ; and at last a 
ring was formed and a regular wrestling-match commenced 
between him and a farmer-looking man. Randall brand- 
ished his legs about in the most ridiculous style, but proved 
himself a good wrestler, and finally threw his antagonist." 

We have spoken of the time before railroads, and wlien 
we considf^r the secluded situation of Williamstown in the 
early days, hemmed in as it was by mountains on every side, 
accessible with any facility only through the valleys of tlie 
Hoosac and the Housatonic, it is almost a matter of wonder 
that so many found their way to the College, and that as 
early as J 804 its catalogue contained the names of one hun- 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 33 

dred and forty-four students, and both tlie College buildings 
were full. 

Ex-Governor Emory Washburn, of the class of 181G 
has given a description of his experience of college life 
then, which will help to an understanding of the condi- 
tion of things at the time. He says, " it is difficult at this 
day to make one understand the perfect isolation of the 
spot. During my residence in college, nothing in the form 
of stage-coach or vehicle for public communication ever en- 
tered the town. Once a week a solitary messenger, generally 
on horseback, came over the Florida Mountain, bringing 
us our newspapers and letters from Jjoston and the eastern 
l^arts of the State. Once in a week a Mr. Green came up 
from the South, generally in a one-horse wagon, bringing 
the county newspa})ers printed at Stockbridge and Pittsfield ; 
and by some similar mode, and at like intervals, we heard 
from Troy and Albany. AVith the exception of these, not 
a ripple of the commotions that disturbed the world outside 
of these barriers of hills and mountains ever reached the 
unruttied calm of our valley life. Nor was that all. It was 
scarcely less difficult to reach the place by private than by 
public conveyance, except by one's own means of transit. 
My home, you are aware, was near the center of the State. 
And as my resources were too limited to make use of a pri- 
vate conveyance, I was compelled to rely upon stage and 
chance. My route was by stage to Pittsfield, and thence 
by a providential team or carriage the remainder of my 
journey. 

" I have often smiled as I have recalled with what perse- 
vering assiduity I waylaid every man who passed by the 
hotel in order to find some one who would consent to take 
as a passenger a luckless wight in pursuit of an education 
under such difficulties. I think I am warranted in saying 
that I made that passage in ever}^ form and shape of team 
and vehicle, generally a loaded one, which the ingenuity of 
man had, up to that time, ever constructed. My bones ache 
at the mere recollection ' 



34 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

" While such was the difficulty of access to the College, it 
presented little, to the eye of one who visited it for the first 
time, to reward the struggle it ]iad cost him. When I joined 
it, it had two buildings, and, I think, fifty-eight students, 
with two professors and two tutors. The East College was 
a fine, plain, imposing structure, four stories in height, built 
of brick. Not one of its lower rooms was occupied, and a 
part onl}^ of its other stories. Not one of the rooms or pas- 
sageways was painted. No one of the rooms was papered, 
or even had a carpet upon it ; and I do not believe the 
entire furniture of any one room, excepting perhaps the 
bed, could have cost, or would have sold for, five dollars. I 
have before me a bill of the furniture of the Senior Recita- 
tion-room in 1816, including the locks upon the doors, and 
find it amounts to $7.26. 

" The only water we had to use was drawn from a spring 
at the foot of the hill, south of the East College, and to 
that every student from both Colleges repaired with his pail 
as his necessities required. The consequence was, it must 
be confessed, there was no excessive use of that element of 
comfort and neatness." 



CPIAPTEK VI. 

TlIJiEATENKD IvEMOVAL OF THE CoLLEGE. 

Poi)ular and Houri.sliiiig as the College was at the begin- 
iiig and for several years, during the latter i)art of the pres- 
idency of Dr. Fitch there came a decline in its reputation 
and pros})erity. By some this was attributed to the locality 
of the College, which j)laced it at a considerable distance 
from the central and most of the western portion of the 
State, while other colleges had also been founded in New 
York and Vermont since its establishment, which drew 
students from fields to which it had formerly looked for a 
supply of pupils. Influenced b}^ these, among other reasons, 
there came to be a strong disposition on the part of many 
to remove the College from Williamstown to some place in 
the valley of the Connecticut. While this subject was in 
agitation, Dr. Fitch resigned his office, unwilling that the 
decline of the College should be attributed to any Avant of 
ability or efficiency on his part. He was succeeded in office 
by Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore, D. D., who came to the Col- 
lege with his mind favorably inclined to its removal. A 
Committee of the Trustees, however, to whom the question 
of removal had been referred, reported, at the same meeting 
at which Dr. Moore was chosen President, that " a removal 
of Williams College from Williamstown is inexpedient at. 
the present time, and under existing circumstances." But 
the agitation of the question went on, and a few years after 
his inauguration, President Moore declared himself openly 
in favor of removal, threatening to resign his office if the 
removal were not effected, and it was found that a majority 
of the Trustees also favored it. A proposal was made to 
unite the College with a projected literary institution at 
Amherst. This was declined by the Board. Finally a ma- 
jority of the Board voted that it was expedient to remove 

35 



db WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

the College to some more central part of the State, on cer- 
tain conditions being complied with, and appointed a com- 
mittee of reference, consisting of Hon. James Kent, Chan- 
cellor of the State of New York; Hon. Nathaniel Smith, 
Judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and the Rev. 
Seth Payson, D. D., of New Hampshire, who were to visit 
the towns in Hampshire county and determine the place to 
wliich the College should be removed, the Trustees pledg- 
ing themselves to abide by their decision. The committee 
reported Northampton as the proper place. The i)ublic 
agitation of the question of removal now increased. Active 
eflbrts were made to raise funds for sustaining the College 
at Northampton, and its friends in Berkshire made corre- 
sponding efforts to provide additional funds for its support 
in its present location. Fifty thousand dollars were soon 
subscribed by the public of Hampshire county and its vi- 
cinity to meet the expenses of tlie proposed removal to 
Northampton and any loss of funds which might thereby 
be incurred, and the President and Trustees petitioned the 
Legislature, at its session in 1820, for permission to remove 
the College to that place. Remonstrance against the grant- 
ing of the petition was made by the people of Williamstown, 
and it was ardently opposed throughout the county of Berk- 
shire. The petition was carefully considered in the Legis- 
lature by a committee, who reported that it was " neither 
lawful nor exj)edient to grant the prayer of the petition." 
It was expected that all parties would acquiese in the de- 
cision of the Legislature, whatever it might be. And now 
that the decision was in favor of the continuance of the Col- 
lege on its original site, it was supposed that all the friends 
of learning in the western part of the State would give it 
their hearty support. But some of those who wer6 in favor 
of the removal were not so disposed, although it had been 
claimed by both parties, during the agitation, that only one 
college was needed or could be sustained in Western Massa- 
chusetts. Funds were soon raised, and a beginning made to 
erect buildings at Amherst, in the expectation of procuring 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 37 

a charter for a college there, and the next year Dr. Moore 
accepted an invitation to the i)residency of the new institu- 
tion. It was feared tliat the whole body of students here 
might follow him to Amherst, such was their respect for 
him ; and so dark seemed, at the time, the prospects of 
Williams; but fully half of the students decided to remain 
here. The accession at once of the Rev. Edward Dorr 
Grifhn, D. D., to the presidency, to which office he had been 
chosen previous to Dr. Moore's actually vacating it, and the 
vigorous rallying of its friends to its su])port, enabled the 
College to pass through this great trial without serious harm, 
and since its occurrence its course has been one of continued 
and confirmed strength and prosperity. 



o 



38 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 




CHATTER VII. 

The Character and AD^rixisTRATioN of the College. 

One might, with much confidence, anticipate wliat the 
character of the College would be from the character of those 
who were actively engaged in fbunding it. The men to 
whom the Legislature entrusted the duty of carrying out 
the purpose of Colonel Williams were among the most emi- 
nent citizens of the Commonwealth. Tliey were men who 
not only respected the wishes of Williams, but they were, 
with hardly one exception, men of liberal education, men 
of trained judgment and culture. Most of them were gradu- 
ates of Yale College, and brought to the work they had in 
hand much of the spirit of that institution. 

The first on the list of trustees, the Hon. William \\"\\\- 
iams, was the son of Hon. Israel Williams of Hatfield, and 
a cousin of the Founder of the College. He graduated at 
Yale College in 1754, was clerk of the Court of Common 
Pleas for Hampshire county, and held many offices of trust. 
The latter part of his life was spent in Dalton. Dr. West, in 
a sermon preached at his funeral, says, " he was leader and 
guide to the people for many years ; an ornament and glory 
of the town as a citizen and Christian." 

The Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, LL. D.,of Stockbridge, had 
a national reputation. He was a graduate of Yale College 
in 1765. He has the credit, as much as any one, of procur- 
ing the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. He was a 
leading member of the State Convention for the consider- 
ation of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and urged 
its adoption. He was Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives of Massachusetts, a Representative and Senator in the 
National Congress, and a Judge of the Supreme Court of the 
State. He was not only one of the original trustees of the 
College, but at one time held the office of Professor of Law 

and Civil Polity. 

39 



40 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

Woodbridge Little, Esq., a native of Colchester, Conn., and 
a graduate also of Yale College, after studying theology, and 
engaging in the work of the Christian ministry for a few 
years, was admitted to the bar, and settled in Pittsfield, and 
became one of the most eminent men of that town and of the 
count}^ He was an early and large benefactor of the Col- 
lege, and at his death also left it an important bequest. 

Hon. John Bacon, a native of Connecticut, graduated at 
Princeton College. He was for a time Pastor of the Old 
South Church, Boston, but in 1775 left that church and 
settled in Stockbridge as a civilian. He became prominent 
in public affairs, was often a member of the Legislature, 
once President of the Senate, a Member of Congress, and first 
judge of the county courts for nearly twenty j'^ears. 

Hon. Thompson J. Skinner, a native of Connecticut, as 
were so man}^ of the fi.rst settlers of Williamstown and of 
Berkshire, came early to AVilliamstown, and was a man of 
great influence. He was not only a Trustee, but also Treas- 
urer of the College. He was also Treasurer of the State and 
Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. 

Israel Jones, Esq., a native of AVeston, came to Adams in 
1766, and purchased the farm on which Fort Massachusetts 
stood. He was a man of excellent character, often appointed 
to posts of civil trust and honor, and was frequently a mem- 
ber of the Legislature. 

Hon. David Noble was a native of New Milford, Conn., 
and graduated at Yale College in 1764, and came to Wil- 
liamstown in 1770. He was a lawyer and afterwards a 
merchant, and became an extensive land owner. He was 
a man of great intelligence and enterprise, and was made a 
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. 

Rev. Seth Swift was a native of Kent, Conn., and gradu- 
ated at Yale College in 1774. He was ordained to the min- 
istry in Williamstown in 1779, in which office he continued 
nearly thirty years. 

Rev. Daniel Collins was born at Guilford, (/onn., and grad- 
uated at Yale College in 1760. He was pastor of the church 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 41 

in Lancsborough nearly fifty years, and was greatly beloved 
and esteemed. He was deeply interested in the College and 
devoted to its welfare. 

Rev. Stephen West, D. D., was born at Tolland, Conn., 
and graduated at Yale College in 1755. He was chaplain 
at Fort Massachusetts for a short time, from which he went 
to Stockbridge, as the successor of the distinguished Presi- 
dent Edwards, where he continued his ministry more than 
sixty years. He was one of the most eminent clergymen of 
the country, and had great influence far and wide. At the 
first meeting of the Trustees he was chosen Vice-President 
of the College, and held that office for twenty years.* 

Such were the men under whose direction and by whose 
counsels the College was set in operation, and by whom its 
character was shaped. They were men foremost in civil 
and in professional life, men of the highest character for in- 
telligence and moral worth. The}' were men, nearly all of 
them, who had themselves been trained in one of our no- 
blest seats of learning. It was almost certain that the new 
college which they were establishing on the frontier should 
partake largely the spirit of the older institution, and that 
Williams should be a child of Yale. 

The College has had from the begining an able class of 
instructors, men of solid rather than showy and superficial 
qualities, and latterly the instruction has been given wholly 
by professors, tutors no longer being employed. 

The Hon. Charles A. Dewey, for many years a Trustee 
and Secretary of the College, in an address at the celebra- 
tion of the semi-centennial anniversary in 1843, used this 
language : 

" Williams College was peculiarly fortunate in its first 
officers. President Fitch, that good man, who for almost 
twenty-two years, almost half of the whole period of its past 
existence, presided over it, brought to the presidential chair 
those qualities which gave him extensive influence, and 

* Durfee's Ilistoiy. 



42 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

attracted the attention of the friends of learning and 
science. Uniting the urbane manners of the good-hearted 
gentleman, highly respectable talents, much and long-con- 
tinued experience as a teacher, and a heart abounding in 
love to God and towards his fellowmen, he was beloved of 
all, esteemed of all. 

" His associates, as teachers, were men of the highest order. 
I see there Jeremiah Day, since so long at the head of Yale 
College; Henry Davis, who has presided over Middlebury 
and Hamilton Colleges; Thomas Day and Warren Dutton, 
lights of science and literature. 

" The accession of Dr. Griffin gave a new impulse to the 
College. His eminent talents, his high religious character, 
his ardent devotion to the College, as then located, produced 
the happiest results. The tide soon turned ; and from that 
day Williams College has had a glorious onward march. 
Its enlargement and imi:)rovement have corresponded with 
the progress of the age. Everything requisite for a thorough 
and useful education is provided, so that our sons, to our 
latest posterity, may come to this fount and drink freely of 
those waters so well adapted to secure their intellectual and 
moral training, and to fit them to act well their parts of the 
great drama of life." 

A letter of the first president to a friend, as early as 1709, 
will indicate the character with which the College began. 
He says : " Things go on well in our inftmt seminary. Our 
number is hardly so large as last year. The scarcity of 
money is one cause of the decline, some leaving through 
mere poverty. But our ambition is to make good scholars 
rather than add to our numbers, and in this we mean not 
to be outdone by any college in New England. Persever- 
ance in the system we have adopted will eventually give 
reputation to this Institution in the view of all who prefer 
the useful to the showy." An extract from the inaugural 
address of President Hopkins, nearly forty years later, will 
show that the College then maintained its early character : 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE, 43 

" I have no ambition to build up here what would be called 
a great institution ; the wants of the community do not re- x 
quire it. But I do desire, and shall labor, that this may be 
a safe College ; that its reputation may be sustained and . 
raised still higher ; that the plan of instruction I have in- 
dicated may be carried out more fully ; that here there may 
be health, and cheerful study, and kind feelings, and pure 
morals ; and that, in the memory of future students, college 
life may be made a still more verdant spot." The promi- 
nent characteristics of the College during Dr. Hopkins' long 
administration, as well as from the Ijeginning, could hardly 
be better expressed tlian by those words of his, " health, 
clieerful study, kind feelings, and pure morals." The situ- 
ation of the College among the far-famed hills of Berkshire 
is evidently favorable to health ; and all who know anything 
of it know that during the protracted and distinguished ad- 
ministration to which we have just alluded, the College has 
had an enviable reputation as a place where the students have 
been interested in their studies, and, in general, have been 
faithful in their work; where the moral tone of life has been 
high, and where the instructors have sought to blend the 
offices of teacher and friend, having the true conception of 
education, as the drawing out — c-du.co — what is in the pupil, 
the development of his own powers rather than the endeavor 
to clothe him with the mantle of another's knowledge or ac- 
complislinients. These characteristics of the College have 
continued to mark it also under the more recent adminis- 
trations. 

It speaks well also for the College and the character of its 
instruction that a larger portion of the College text-books 
now in general use have been prepared by the professors in 
this institution than by those of any other college, with the 
possible exception of Yale and Harvard, 

Quality rather than quantity has been the aim of Will- 
iams. She has not undertaken to be a University, nor to 
advertise herself by the numbers that might be drawn to 
her halls. Calling herself a College, she has aimed to do 



44 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

the appropriate work of a College, but to do that work in 
the best and most effective manner. 

One would be safe in saying that in no college is the re- 
ligious atmosphere more perceptible or more wholesome 
than at Williams. Free alike from cant and bigotry, from 
looseness and indifference, the religious tone of the College 
is pure and healthful as the mountain air which her students 
breathe. It is, moreover, not the least of the distinctions of 
this institution that, while a large portion of her students 
have been persons of avowedly Christian character, the first 
movement in our country for the Christianization of the 
heathen w^orld also had its origin here. The stranger who 
visits Williamstown and asks for its most interesting objects 
will be directed to Mission Park. As he enters its quiet and 
beautiful seclusion, a marble monument, surmounted by a 
massive globe — with the continents and the islands of the 
sea boldly outlined on its surface — emblematic of the world- 
wide reach of their enterprise, marks the spot where Mills 
and Richards and Hall and Nott, with their associates, met 
from time to time, in the early dtiys of the College, to ponder 
and pray over that Divine Commission, " Go ye into all the 
world and preach the Gospel to every creature." In those 
I)onderings and prayers originated our great Board of Foreign 
Missions, and also the American Bible Society. And now, 
among all the gatherings and attractive scenes which mark 
Commencement-week, there is none of more delightful and 
at the same time profound interest than the assembly around 
that monument in the park on the Sabbath afternoon, when, 
for an hour, amid the utterances of prayer and song, and the 
words of one and another veteran returned from the distant 
mission fields of the world, the heart is touched with a 
sense of the sublimest work which this earth knows. 

Among the special characteristics of the College which 
grew out of old Fort Massachusetts, whose commander was 
wont to lament his deficient early education, one of the 
most prominent is its devotion to the study of the Natural 
Sciences. Whether owing to the ai^propriate influence of 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIA.MS COLLEGE. 



45 




MISSION PARK MONUMENT. 



46 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

the peculiar location of the College amid scenery of the 
most attractive character, or to other causes, it is a fact that 
it has had in its faculty, from an early date, teachers who 
have heen ardently devoted to the study of nature, and who 
by their OAvn enthusiasm have kindled a love of this study 
in many of their pupils. Early in the present century the 
study of chemistry and natural philosophy was made prom- 
inent and attractive in connection with the lectures and 
illustrative experiments of Professor Dewey. A few years 
later, lectures on mineralogy, geology, and botany were 
given by that eminent teacher of these sciences. Professor 
Amos Eaton, who was a pioneer in these departments of 
study, and did as much, perhaps, as any one to popularize 
science in this country. He was an enthusiast. His ardent 
love of natural science, especially of botany, led him to re- 
linquish the profession of the law, in which he was engaged, 
and devote himself to the study of nature. He was among 
the first in this country to teach the sciences, not only in 
the class-room, but in the open field. He was accustomed 
to take his classes with him on explorations for the study 
of the rocks and plants in the homes where nature had 
placed them. 

For several years there existed among the students a so- 
ciety called the " Linnfean Society." This gave way to the 
" Lyceum of Natural History," the avowed object of which 
is " the study of the natural sciences, and the prosecution of 
antiquarian research." This society has become one of the 
permanent organizations of the College. It occupies a spa- 
cious brick building, erected for its use by the late Nathan 
Jackson, of New York. Here the society has gathered a 
large collection of specimens in the various departments of 
natural history. Here also it holds regular meetings, and 
in rooms adjoining the museum its members carry on their 
investigations, and engage in the practical work incidental 
to their studies. The society has been accustomed also, 
under the lead often of one or more of the professors in the 
College, to make explorations, sometimes in quite distant 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 47 




JACKSON HALL. 



48 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

regions, for the purjDose of prosecuting its studies and mak- 
ing discoveries. The late Professor Albert Hopkins, brother 
of President Hopkins, who was an ardent and devout stu- 
dent of nature, often went on such expeditions, both near 
and remote ; and President Chadbourne, when a professor, 
went with the society to Florida, and on another occasion 
led an expedition to Greenland. The late Professor Ten- 
ney was on his way to the Rock}^ Mountains, a few years 
ago, with another party, when his sudden death put an end 
to the expedition. 

It is worthy of mention, also, that the first Observatory 
erected in this country for astronomical purposes was built 
here. It was erected through the personal influence, and 
mainly at the expense, of Professor Hopkins, whose devout 
and saintly spirit, carrying religion into all the affairs of 
life, inscribed such texts of Scripture as this over the door 
of the Observatory : " For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Yet 
once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and 
the earth, and the sea, and the dry land." On the marble 
face of the sun-dial, which stands by the southern door of 
the Observatory, one reads also, cut in deep letters, this 
question of our Lord : " How is it that ye do not discern this 
time?" Hawthorne mentions this dial, in his chronicles 
of a visit to Berkshire. Speaking of the marble-working at 
Adams, he says, in his Note-Book : " At one shop for man- 
ufacturing the marble, I saw the disk of a sun-dial as large 
as the top of a hogshead ; intended for Williams College." 

The New England Journal of Education has recently pub- 
lished, from data furnished by the secretary of Tufts Col- 
lege, a table showing the proj^ortion of time given to the re- 
quired studies in ten New England colleges. From this it 
appears that while Williams gives just about the average 
time to the ancient and modern languages, 37.5 per cent., 
she gives to natural history 10.9, the next highest on the 
list giving only 7.6, and the general average of the ten col- 
leges being only 4.G. In ethics, again, Williams gives 10.8, 
the next highest being 5.7, and the general average 4.2. In 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 49 




THE ODSERVATORY. 



o 



50 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

philosophy and history studies, including political econom}^, 
Williams gives 29.8, the next highest giving 23.1, and the 
general average being 17.3. 

This table indicates at a glance the fact that while Wil- 
liams has given the natural sciences an eminent place, it 
has given to mental and moral science a pre-eminent one. 
Under the administration of such a man as President Hop- 
kins, it could hardly have been otherwise. Indisputably one 
of the foremost philosophic thinkers of our country since the 
time of Edwards, and combining with great mental acumen 
remarkable aptitude as a teacher, it was almost a matter of 
course that in his hands philosophic studies should have a 
place of more than usual prominence. Accordingly, dur- 
ing the almost forty years of his presidency over the college, 
while other studies failed not to receive due attention, or 
other sciences proper regard, the Science of Man had a place 
which, so far as we know, has nowhere else been accorded 
to it. In the college curriculum here, while the Senior year 
has been almost wholly given to this highest science, as the 
fitting crown of a collegiate course, the study of it begins 
with that course, Dr. Hopkins having been accustomed to 
give the Freshman Class a series of lectures on physiology 
and the laws of health. His own early training for the med- 
ical profession prepared him to do this with unusual interest 
and effect. The influence, also, of this early training upon 
his way of looking at the ftT,cts of mental and moral science 
may have aided him in the construction of a system of 
philosophy so broad and self-consistent, and so completely 
in liarmony with fact in all departments of knowledge, that 
it may well be termed a universal philosophy. Dr. Hopkins 
has not been willing that metaphysics should stand for 
something intelligible only to the learned few, while inex- 
plicable to the common mind. On the contrar}'^, he has 
held that the facts of the mind and the laws of its operation, 
it being nearest of all things to man, may be known by all 
with as much certainty as the facts and laws of the outward 
and remoter world. So he has fearlessly taken his students 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 51 

into this realm of study, and accustomed tliem to Ijc at home 
with themselves, and while seeing the harmony of all 
knowledge, to see that the knowledge of themselves is the 
highest of all, and that 

" The proper study of mankind is man." 

So far, indeed, has he carried his views of the simplicity 
and intelligibility of these higher sciences, that he has been 
accustomed to teach them on the blackboard as one would 
arithmetic. And his success with this method in the class- 
room had been such, and his confidence in the system, tliat 
he ventured a few years ago to give a popular course of 
metaphysics before the Lowell Institute, illustrated by dia- 
grams in the same way. The experiment was successful, 
and the phonographic report of those unwritten lectures 
now constitutes that remarkable volume, An Outline Study 
of Man; or, The Body and Mind in One System, whicli has 
become a text-book in so many of our colleges. It is a small 
volume in comparison with many which treat of the same 
subject, but it may be said to condense in itself a comjilete 
system of philosophy. Anyone who reads it, and considers 
that such a course of instruction, only greatly expanded, 
and a similar course in moral science, occupy a large i)or- 
tion of the time during the entire Senior year, will under- 
stand liow rich that year is to the students at Williams. 
Many a graduate looks back to it as the most memorable 
year of his life. That Senior recitation-room, the throne of 
the presidency during Dr. Hopkins' long incumbency of the 
office, and where, although he has laid down tlie seals of 
authority, he still presides in a most important sense, and 
so long as he continues to teach will preside by the regal 
sway of thought and character which he exercises, makes 
one think of the old Platonic Academ}^ or Socrates in friendly 
converse with his pupils, rather than of the ordinary class- 
room. The glory of that room has been that tliere tlie 
freest inquiry has been encouraged, and the students taught 
to see and think for themselves, to call no man master, but 



52 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

to seek and welcome the truth as that for which they were 
made. 

It is noticeable that there is a peculiarly warm and deep 
feeling on the part of the alumni of Williams towards their 
College, and it seems to us to be explained only by this 
sense that here their manhood was revealed to them and 
developed. 

No one cherished a warmer regard for his alma mater than 
did our late President Garfield for this the College of his 
choice, and to whose anniversary he w^as coming in filial 
spirit when he received his fatal wound, nor was this filial 
spirit ever more warmly reciprocated than by the feeling 
which went out from Williams towards her most distin- 
guished alumnus. 

But Williams is not shut up to the exceptional boast of 
the late President of the Nation among her alumni. Her 
sons are found in full share in the places of honor and 
power. Of the select company comj^osing the Supreme 
Court of the country she claims Justice Field. Another of 
her sons. Judge Betts, long presided over the District Court 
of New York, while of the judges and chief justices of the 
State courts, from Vermont to California, her catalogue fur- 
nishes a long and worthy roll. In the halls of Congress, and 
in the professions of law, medicine, and theology, she has 
been represented by many of national reputation. No col- 
lege, perhaps, has been oftener or more ably represented in 
the editorial chair. She has not only well supplied her own 
offices of instruction, but has furnished professors and presi- 
dents to other colleges in this and other lands. Williams 
presides to-day in the University of Wisconsin, and no name 
stands higher in the Department of Linguistics than that of 
William D. Whitney, now holding a chair at Yale. As 
writers on political economy, Professor Perry and Hon. 
David A. Wells have a reputation that reaches beyond their 
own country, while in poetry and general literature no name 
is more honored than that of William Cullen Bryant. 

During the administration of President Chadbourne, so 



WILUAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 



Oo 




GOODRICH HALL. 



54 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

well known both as a teacher and for his great executive 
ability, several new buildings were erected, and old ones 
were made to put on a more attractive appearance, and the 
College grounds to show the results of a more watchful care. 
Graduates of a few years ago would hardly recognize the 
new chapel with its added transept, its frescoed walls and 
cushioned seats, and beautiful memorial windows. The 
student societies have also erected several elegant and taste- 
ful buildings, which have contributed much to the outward 
appearance of the College and the village of which it forms 
a part. 

Goodrich Hall, one of the finest of the College buildings 
at the present time, was a gift from the Hon. John Z. Good- 
rich, of Stockbridge, who has been one of the most liberal 
pecuniary benefactors of the College. It was intended to 
contain rooms for the professor cf chemistry and physics, 
and a recitation-room for the mathematical classes, while 
the upper story, with its high Gothic roof, furnishes a most 
ample and well-provided gymnasium. 

Clark Hall, in point of construction, is the finest of the 
College buildings. It was the gift of the late Edward Clark, 
Esq., of New York, an alumnus and Trustee of the College. 
It was designed chiefly to furnish a place of safe deposit for 
the Wilder mineralogical cabinet, which had been secured 
to the College by the liberality of Mr. Clark, while provision 
was also made in it for the preservation of the College 
archives. No expense was spared in its construction. Built 
of stone and iron, so as to be fire-proof, its exterior shows 
the most thorough workmanship. The interior is finished 
with simplicit}^, but with elegance. The floor is of Spanish 
tiles, resting upon iron supports and brick arches. The 
doors are of solid oak. The cases containing the cabinet of 
minerals are of mahogany^ with massive plate-glass doors. 

In 1882 was completed the new Astronomical Observa- 
tory, designed to supplement the old Observatory, the first 
college building of this character erected in our country, 
but which is no longer sufficient to afford the necessary in- 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 



b'o 




CLARK HALL. 



o 



5G WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

struction in astronomy, and enable the professor in this de- 
i^artment of science to make adequate observations. The 
new Observatory is situated on an eminence a little removed 
from the general range of college buildings in a southwest 
direction. It is an iron building, and was designed mainly 
for the accommodation of the meridian circle, one of the 
finest in the country, made by Messrs. Repsold and Sons, of 
Hamburg. For this instrument, as well as for the building 
which contains it, the College is indebted to the Hon. David 
Dudley Field, who has at various times been one of its most 
liberal benefactors. 

The most recent addition to the buildings of the College, 
and coeval with the administration of President Carter, is 
that of Morgan Hall, the gift of the late ex-Governor, E. D. 
Morgan, of New York, who, as a native of Berkshire, was 
naturally interested in the College, but who did not live to 
see the completion of the fine building for whose erection 
he had made provision. 



56 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

;ible the proffsssor in this de 
iiiato obsfTvations. Th; 
•...::. ., . ... oininence a little remove- . 
• of college buildings in a south we;-: 
I building, and was designed mainlN 
i of the meridian circle, one of th- 
. ?.c1e hy Messrs. Repsold and Sons, o: 

it, as well as for the buildin /. 

. indebted to the Hon. Davi(i 

■I- times beer, one of its most 

i.he buildings of tlie (Jolii- 
ution of President Carter, 
■ the late ex-Governor, E. i' 
•e of Berkshire, wa>- 
'' 'o did not live ti. 
, whose erection 



I 




MORGAN IIAI.I. 



o 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Past and Present. 

Tlie contrast between the Williamstown of to-day and its 
site wlien Colonel Williams made his will, which gave name 
to the i)lace and existence to the Free School and then to 
the College, is great indeed. Then the region was literally 
a wilderness. It was so far removed from any considerable 
settlements that, as we have seen, it was hardly recognized 
as belonging to New England. When Williams started on 
the fatal expedition to Crown Point, there was only a little 
hamlet here of eleven settlers, who were able to hold their 
ground and make homos for themselves under the protec- 
tion of the fort near by, and the further protection of a 
block-house which stood near where is now the house of 
Mrs. Hosford, on the north side of the Park. Here was the 
center of the then border settlement. Happily for us to-day^ 
in the original disposition of the ground of the new town- 
ship, the si.xty-three home lots were laid out along a 
road-way of the remarkable width of sixteen rods, and 
stretching westward from Green River for a full mile. The 
first house built here stood upon the ground now occupied 
b}' Mr. Noyes, a little west of the Park. It was subsequently 
removed from that site, and a portion of it may now be 
found in what is known as Charityville, constituting a part 
of the first house on the right hand after crossing the bridge 
on the road leading up the Northwest Hill. 

Fortunately the town now has in its keeping the records 
of the settlement before it bore the name of Williams. There 
is a volume in the custody of the town clerk, the title-page 
of which reads, " Proprietor's Book of the west Township at 
Hoosuck," with the addition, " Said Town Ship in Corporated 
by the Name of Williams Town in the year A. D. 17G5." 

Those were the days of the beginning of things, when the 
8 57 



58 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

school-master had not got abroad much, and people wrote 
and spelled every one according to his liking. 

The first entry in this early record book runs as follows : 

"Province of the Massachusetts Bay. On the petition of 
Isaac Wyman and others subscribers in behalf of themselves 
and others Proprietors of the west Township at Hoosuck. 

" In the House of Representatives, Sept. 10, 1753. Read 
and voted that William Williams Esq'r one of his majesty's 
Justices of the peace for the County of Hampshire Issue his 
warrant for Calling a meeting of proprietors of the west 
Township at Hoosuck so called Directed to one of the 
principal proprietors of said Township Requiring him to 
set up a notification in some public place in said Township 
setting Forth the time place and occasion of said meeting 
fourteen Days Beforehand which meeting shall be holden 
in said Township and such of the Proprietors as shall be 
present at said meeting are hereby authorized and impow- 
ered by a major vote to Determine upon a Division of all or 
part of the lands in said Township not all ready allotted 
also to clioose a Committee or Committees to la}' out the 
same allso to Raise monies to Defray the charges that may 
arise by means of laying out said land also for Clearing 
Highways. 

as also to Chuse proprietors Clerk Treasurer assessors & 
Collectors and also to agree and determine upon a method 
for calling meetings of said proprietors for the future. 

Sent up for Concurrence. 

F. Hubbard Spkr. 

In Counciel September 10 1753. 

Red and Concurd. 

Thos. Clerk Depty Secry. 

Consented to W. Shirley a true Cop}' 

p Thos. Clerk, Depty Secty." 

" William Williams Esq. of Pontoosuck issued such warrant 
Nov. 15 1753 warning a meeting of proi)rietors to be held 
at the house of Seth Hudson * on the 5th of Dec. at 9. A. M. 



* The first house built in Williamstown. 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 59 

At saifl iiicctiiig 

Allen Curtise chosen Moderator. 

Isaac Wyman " props. Clerk. 

Voted to lay out all the medowland lying ui)on the main 
River and the niedovv land Lying ui)on green river as far as 
the first Brook or Creek in equal purposhon to Each Right 
in said Township and one hundred acres of upland to each 
Right ajoining to the medow land or as Near as they Can to 
Lay out the best land. 

Allen Curtise Scth Hudson Jonathan Medium Ezekiel 
Foster Jabiz Worrin committee to lay out the land. 

Voted to raise a rate of Eight Shillings upon Each pro- 
])rietors Right to pay Charges of laying out. 

the above said votes paist in a Legial manor 

Test — Allen Cuktise moderator of said mcetin. 
Isaac Wyman Prop's Clerk." 

In addition to the home lots originally laid out by direc- 
tion of the Legislature, the entire township was divided into 
seven sections, a i)ortion of each of which was assigned to 
each proprietor of a home lot. These subdivisions were 
known as Pine Lots, Oak Lots, Meadow Lots, &c. 

Tlie second meeting of the Proj)rietors was held on the 
18th of April, 1754. The exigencies of a new settlement are 
indicated by the objects for wliicli the meeting was called. 
It was called " to see if the pro's will agree upon some man 
or men to builda grist mill and a saw mill and what 
bounty they will give for the incuragement of the building 
of the same." 

" To see if the proprietors will agree upon some place for 
a burying place and clear a part of the same. 

" To see if the Propr's will have the gospel Preach in this 
town this summer or some part of it and if so to choose a 
committee to bring in some authordoxt minister to preach 
the gospel." 



60 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

The Warning for this meeting concludes as follows : 

" Which meeting is to be on Thirsday the Eighteenth of 
this Instant at Nine of the Clock in the four noon and such 
of the Propr's as Shall assemble and meet at s'd time and 
place are hearby impowred to act on all or part of the four 
going articles. 

" Dated at Fort Massachusetts April 5th 1754. 

Isaac Wyman 
Propr's Clerk." 

It is worthy of notice that the Warning of this meeting, as 
well as that of the third meeting of the proprietors, held 
May 15th of the same year, was dated at Fort Massachusetts. 
Isaac Wyman, the Clerk by whom the meetings were called 
was a Lieutenant, and stationed at the fort. It shows the 
intimate connection between the fort and the little company 
of settlers in what was then known as West Hoosuck. The 
names of eight soldiers at least, also appear on the list of 
the original proprietors of the township. It was a military 
settlement in an important sense. 

No meeting of the proprietors seems to have been held 
from 1754 until October, 1760. Then it was voted " to clear 
the street east and west as far as the Town Lots extend, and 
north and south from Stone Hill to the River." 

At a meeting in March, 1762, on the article " to see 
whether they would raise money to hire preaching," the 
record says : " article of raiseing money to hire preaching 
tryed voted in ye Nagetive." A year afterwards, however, 
it was voted " to have preaching for the future." It was also 
voted " to raise 12 shillings on each propr's rite to defray 
the expense of preaching." Two months afterwards they 
" voted Asa Johnson's account of nine days for going after 
a minister £3-12." 

In 1763 the settlement had got on so far as to have a 
school house, and the proprietors' meetings began to be held 
there instead of at the fort or private houses as formerly. 



WILLI AMSTOWX AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 61 

111 1764 it was voted " to build a bridge over Green river 
at the east end of tlic town street." 

This " town street," our Main street, being Uiid out orig- 
inally by the Legislature and not, as usual, by the town^ 
dillers from ordinary streets in that it does not belong to 
the adjoinijig proprietors — the public having merely the 
right of travel over it — but it belongs wholly to the town, 
the adjacent proprietors having no right of ownership in it. 

The next year Mr. Benjamin Simonds was appointed a 
committee for the purpose of procuring for the proprietors 
a copy of Colonel Williams' will. It was also voted to give 
Mr. Whitman Welsh a call to the work of the ministry. 
£80 were voted him as a " settlement," one half the first 
year and one half the second. He was also promised £70 
salary, beginning with £-10 the two first years, and increas- 
ing £3 a year till £70 was reached. 

In the small Book of Surveys, which was kei)t by the pro- 
prietors, the names of men with military titles are conspicu- 
ously frequent, showing the intimate connection of the new 
settlement with Fort Massachusetts. Apart from the private 
soldiers we find the names not only of Col. Williams him- 
self, who, as we have seen, became one of the original pro- 
prietors, but of Col. Oliver Partridge, Cap. Elisha Chapin, 
and Lieutenants Isaac Wyman, Moses Graves, Samuel Brown, 
Elisha Hawley, and Obadiah Dickinson. Williamstown in 
the olden time was little other tlian a military station, with 
some outlying fields coming little by little under tillage. 
It was possible for the early settlers to maintain themselves 
so far from the protection of Fort Massachusetts as our 
village, four miles perhaps, only as they built a military 
defense here. This was a block-house, situated a little north 
of our present Park, nearly where Mrs. Hosford's house now 
stands, or between it and the Kappa Alpha Lodge. It had 
a picketed enclosure connected with it into which, in an 
emergency, the settlers could flee for safety. This they had 
occasion repeatedly to do. The block -house was assaulted 
more than once by the Indians, and several of the settlers 
lost their lives by stealthy attack. 



62 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

The change is great indeed from the wilderness and the 
strife of little more than a century ago to the cultured 
beauty and the serene peacefulness of the present. 

By one of the most notable engineering feats of the cen- 
tury, the Hoosac Mountain near by has been pierced by a 
tunnel, and now more than thirty railway trains pass daily 
within sight of the students as they look from their win- 
dows, and within a stone's-throw of the old fort out of which 
the College has grown. The hidden village of the Free 
School is no longer shut in among the hills. The gateways 
of approach have been opened, and it is accessible to the 
world. Ever}^ morning the palace car rolls by, which the 
evening but one before left St. Louis, a city of half a million 
souls, the very site of which was unknown when Williams 
made his bequest and endowed the College. Beautiful in 
its natural site. Art and Culture have been perfecting the 
appearance of the village. Noble lines of trees shade and 
beautify its broad avenue, as it sweeps over one elevation 
after another for the distance of more than a mile. Within 
a few years the width of this avenue has been increased by 
the removal of the fences which formerly bordered it, so that 
it seems to form one continuous park. The passing traveller 
expresses surprise at the discovery of such unexpected and 
unsurpassed beauty, and prolongs his stay, and year by year 
the denizens of pent-up cities come in increasing numbers 
to enjoy rest of body and mind in this new-found Arcadia- 

It would be difficult to name an institution of learning 
more favorably situated in point of natural scenery than the 
College which bears the name of the hero of Fort Massa- 
chusetts. If, instead of leaving his property to endow a 
Free School at a spot so far beyond the recognized bounds 
of civilization that Norton, in his^'Redeemed Captive," snys that 
tlie French and Indians, in their attack upon the fort, sent 
some to creep up as near as they could "to observe whether 
any persons attempted to make their escape, to carry tid- 
ings to New England," he had looked forward a hundred 
years and more, and chosen, out of our now wide and pojui- 
lous territory, a site for a college, he could not have chosen 



I 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WIIJJA^IS COLLEGE. 



63 




64 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

more wisely than he did. In a fertile and beautiful valley, 
threaded by silvery streams, surrounded by the lofty ranges 
of the Taghconic and Green Mountains, Graylock lifting its 
hoary summit above every peak in the commonwealth, there 
is everything in the situation to attract the eye and cultivate 
the best feelings. Every season, every day and hour, has 
here its own peculiar charm. There is a perpetual change 
and variety of scene. Nature never repeats herself, but is 
constantly turning her kaleidoscopic glass and presenting 
fresh surprises. 

On the College grounds, and within a stone's-throw of the 
students' windows, is Christmas Lake, with its fringe of ever- 
greens; while less than a mile away is Flora's Glen — a wild 
and beautiful spot, where tradition says Bryant first brooded 
over his " Thanatopsis." Going up the glen, if one cares to 
ascend higher, the summits of Mount Hopkins and Peters- 
burg invite him to points where the eye ranges from the 
Catskills to the Adirondacks, the Hudson gleaming at inter- 
vals in the distance. Opposite is the Hopper, with its 
deep gorges, its massive sweeps of foliage, its wondrous play 
of light and shade, and its wild wood-road to the flank of 
Graylock and the camping ground where, summer after 
summer, in its pure ether, and amid its babbling brooks, 
many find a delightful change of scene and great refresh- 
ment both of body and mind. 

No more beautiful or healthful surroundings for the stu- 
dent could be found. Shut away from the noise and temp- 
tations of city and town life, in the calm seclusion of this, 
Nature's own retreat, no circumstances could be more favor- 
able for the successful prosecution of the scholar's work. 
And so, perhaps, the hero of Fort Massachusetts " builded 
better than he knew " when, in the Free School of West 
Hoosac, he established another and a better Fortress, one not 
of arms and military enginery, but of moral and intellect- 
ual equipment, to guard society from the assaults of ignor- 
ance, superstition, and a vain materialism, and to preserve 
to the nation and the world the best possessions of intelli- 
gence and virtue. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Neighboring Attractions. 

Interesting as Williamstown is, both for its history and 
on account of its natural attractions, the visitor finds him- 
self in the center of a wide region of beauty and attractive- 
ness. The whole county of Berkshire is famous for its 
scener}', and it is all within easy reach of Williamstown. 
Close at home the drive of the Oblong, as it is called, takes 
one along the valley of the Green River and through the 
lovely scenery of South Williamstown, a distance of four or 
five miles, where, in an appropriately pleasant, quiet situa- 
tion, is Mr. Mills' Family School for Boys, which often num- 
bers more than a hundred pupils, a miniature college by 
itself, and which has been widely known for more than 
thirty years as one of the best schools of the country. It is 
but a ride of two hours on the railway, or the pleasant drive 
of a day by carriage-road, to Sheffield, on the southern limit 
of the county, where Mt. Everett lifts its majestic bulk in 
rivalry wath Graylock itself Stockbridge, the home of the 
Sedgwicks, the Fields, and other distinguished persons, un- 
surpassed for its quiet, natural beauty and the cultured taste 
of its people, which seems to go hand in hand with nature ; 
famous as an Indian Mission in early daj-'s, where Jonathan 
Edwards preached to the red men, while at the same time 
he was writing for the whites his celebrated treatise on the 
Freedom of the Will ; and Lenox, the fashionable summer 
resort and home of so many, where Hawthorne wrote and 
Holmes sung in other days — these shrines of beauty and 
abodes of genius are on the same route of travel, btit less 
distant. 

On the north again, Bennington, the site of one of the 
most important battles of the Revolution, and now marked 
by its appropriate monument, is less than twenty miles away, 
9 6s 



66 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

and from its heights the eye sweeps over a wide range of 
mountain and valley and winding stream from Lake Cham- 
plain to the Catskills. Leading east and west from Wil- 
liamstown, the valleys of the Deerfield and Hoosac rivers 
offer to the traveler scenery seldom surpassed for beauty, 
while the great line of railwa}'', which has excavated its 
famous tunnel under the Hoosac Mountain, offers quick 
and easy transit several times a da}^ to the Hudson on the 
one hand, and to the Connecticut and Boston Bay on the 
other. 

It is but two hours' ride to Saratoga, with its unceasing 
and unequalled attractions of fountain and fashion, of health 
K and pleasure. Lebanon Springs, with its quaint Quaker 
life and peculiar religious ceremonial, and Hancock, offer a 
motive for a favorite drive of a few hours, every mile of 
which is stored with pleasant views as one passes along the 
shaded mountain road, or by the silvery streams that wind 
through the valleys and murmur as they lapse from stone 
to stone. 

Nearer home, and almost, indeed, quite within reach of 
the pedestrian, are the Cascade, the Natural Bridge,* the 
Snow Hole upon the summit of Petersburg Mountain, Mount 
Hopkins, from which the sheen of the distant Hudson flashes 
back upon the sight and the purple light of the Catskills is 

* Hawthorne once spent several days in the vicinity of the Natural Bridge, and 
thus speaks of it in his American Note-Books : " It is not properly a cave, but a 
fissure in a huge ledge of marble, through which a stream has been for ages for- 
cing its way, and has left marks of its gradually wearing power on the tall crags, 
having made curious hollows from the summit down to the level which it has 
reached at the present day. * * * After passing through this romantic and 
most picturesque spot, the stream goes onward to turn factories. Here its voice 
resounds within the hollow crags; there it goes onward, talking to itself, with 
babbling din, of its own wild thoughts and fantasies — the voice of solitude and 
the wilderness — loud and continued, but which yet does not seem to disturb the 
thoughtful wanderer, so that he forgets there is a noise. It talks along its storm- 
worn path ; it talks beneath tall precipices and high banks — a voice that has been 
the same for innumerable ages ; and yet, if you listen, you will perceive a con- 
tinual change and variety in its babble, and sometimes it seems to swell louder 
upon the ear than at others — in the same spot, I mean." 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 



C7 




68 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

seen ; the quiet of Flora's and of Ford's Glens ; the rugged climb 
up Graylock with its massive forests and the far-stretching 
outlook from its lofty summit ; the broad expanse of Bald 
Mountain, that sweet meadow two thousand feet in air bor- 
dered by its fragrant pines — these and the many other walks 
and drives which the mountains and valleys afford in every 
direction. All tastes may be gratified. The variety of 
scene offers fresh attractions for every day, one might say 
for every hour, and each season has its peculiar charms. 

The residents of Williamstown, and of the entire Berk- 
shire region, feel that "the lines have fallen to them in 
pleasant places, and that they have a goodly heritage." 
More and more, travelers through this picturesque country 
are disposed to linger amid its delightful scenery. The 
" summer visitors," as they are called, are wont to protract 
their stay beyond the summer, even till October fills the 
valleys with her golden light, and overspreads the hills 
with her many-hued mantle, and the ripened year sits 
regnant on her throne of beauty. The denizens of the 
crowded cities, in increasing numbers, are building cottages 
and mansions on the Berkshire hillsides, content to come 
year after year, with their families, to the same spot and 
make it their fixed abode during the warm season, and 
whenever the cares of the city's busy life will allow. 



WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 



09 







CHAPTER X. 

Present Character and Condition of the College. 

In the 3'ear 1881, President Chadbourne, after nine years 
of service, resigned the presidency of the College, and Frank- 
lin Carter was elected to fill the vacant place. President 
Carter had been a professor in the College ten years before, 
but at the time of his election to the presidency held a pro- 
fessor's chair at Yale. Originally a student at Yale, which 
from considerations of health he felt obliged to exchange 
for Williams, where he graduated, and having been a pro- 
fessor in both institutions, he brought to his new office the 
best sentiments and traditions of both, and recalled to mind 
the early days of the College when the venerable institution 
of New Haven was so largely represented in the Board of 
Trustees of Williams. 

With the accession of President Carter some changes were 
made in the corps of instruction, and in the arrangement of 
studies. No essential change, however, has been made in 
the character or methods of the College. It remains essen- 
tially the same that it has been, its trustees and faculty of 
instruction being satisfied with the course which has been 
pursued hitherto, and anxious only to maintain that course 
with whatever additional efficacy and success additional 
experience and new op})ortunities may give. One who has 
every reason to know of what he s})eaks saj^s, "The aim 
of Williams College is to secure to each graduate a training 
of all the mental faculties, and thus to furnish a general 
education as a preparation for a useful life. The College 
cannot claim such facilities as are necessary for the develop- 
ment of first-class specialists, but it may claim that its 
course of study as conducted by an excellent corps of 
teachers is well suited to give a solid basis for professional 
life. It is claimed peculiarly that the instruction in phi- 

70 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 71 

losophy ])y the distinguished Ex-President Rev. Dr. Mark- 
Hopkins has proved to he of the greatest service to such of 
the graduates as have entered the ministry, and has, indeed, 
turned many into that particular field of professional life. 
In several of the other departments the teaching has re- 
cently become more thorougii, and both real accjuisition and 
patient thinking are now necessary to secure its degree. In 
the senior year a variety of electives allows the students to 
establish a more direct connection with his subsequent 
studies than was formerly the case, but the College remains 
substantially a College, with an enforced curriculum, and is 
not as };et even an embryo university. It is, however, true 
that both natural science and the modern languages receive 
more attention and a larger share of time than in most of 
the older New England colleges. A special feature in the 
college management has, for many years., been the assist- 
ance given to poor, worthy young men. But no student is 
assisted whose scholarship is not respectable. The location 
of the College secures comparative freedom from tem])tation, 
and the development of a pure character in each student 
has always been regarded by the ofhccrs as of the utmost 
importance. It is intended that the dii)loma shall signify 
that its recipient has a good moral character. 

" Williams College is a religious institution, a Christian col- 
lege. Though the College was at first mainly under Con- 
gregational ist influence, its Board of Trustees is non-sec- 
tarian, and contains at present more Presbyterians and ^ 
Episcopalians taken together than Congregationalists. Sim- 
ilar proportions of religious belief exist probably among the 
students. But all its officers are Christian theists,. and the 
College is held steadily to Christian observances and a 
Christian faith." 

Through tlie considerate liberality of its graduates and 
other friends, the College is very well endowed with scholar- 
ships and scholarship and prize funds, which are offered as 
incentives to excellence in the various departments of study. 
The competition for these exerts a pleasant and healthful 



72 WILLIAMSTOVVN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

influence upon the general ongoing of the College, and the 
public oratorical contests for some of the prizes form a 
marked feature of the College life, and are occasions of much 
interest to many outside of the student circle. 

The College Catalogue for the current year bears on its 
roll the names of two hundred and seventy-five students, 
the freshman class numbering seventy-five. 

The teaching Faculty of the College is composed as fol- 
lows : 

Franklin Carter, Ph. D., LL. D., 

President, and Professor of Natural Theology. 

Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., 

Ex-President, Professor of Christian Theology and of Moral 

and Intellectual Philosophy. 

Rev. Arthur Latham Perry, D. D., LL. D., 
Professor of History and Political Economy. 

Truman Henry Safford, Ph. D., 
Professor of Astronomy, and Librarian. 

Cyrus Morris Dodd, M. A., 
Professor of Mathematics. 

John Hasker Hewitt, M. A., 
Professor of the Ancient Languages. 

Rev. Edward Herkick Griffin, D. D., 
Professor of Rhetoric. 

Rev. John Henry Denison, B. A., 
Pastor of the College Church. 

Orlando Marcellus Fernald, M. A., 
Professor of the Greek Language and Literature, and Sec- 
retary of the Faculty. 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLl-XtE. 73 

Frederick Leake, M. A., 
Instructor in French. 

Granville Stanley Hall, Ph. D., 

Lecturer on the History of Philosoi)liy. 

Richard Austin Rice, M. A., 
Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures. 

Luther Dana Woodbridge, M. D., 
Lecturer on Hygiene. 

Leverett Mears, Ph. D., 
Professor of Physics and Chemistry. 

Samuel Fessenden Clarke, Ph. D., 
Professor of Natural History. 

Herbert Weir Smyth, B. A., 
Instructor in Latin and Sanskrit. 

Edmund Beecher Wilson, Pli. D., 
Lecturer on Biology. 

Bliss Perry, B. A., 
Instructor in Elocution and English. 

Frederick Jennings Parsons, B. A., 
Instructor in French and Geometr3^ 

The following Order of Studies, as taken from the College 
Catalogue, will show the scope and character of the instruc- 



tion given : 



o 



ORDER OF STUDIES. 



FRESHMAN YEAR. 



FIRST TERM. 



Latin. — Livy, Books XXI and XXII; Smith's Rome and Carthage ; Lectures 
on the Military and Political Antiquities of Rome; Exercises in Latin 
Composition. 

Greek. — Herodotus, {^Marathon, TherniopylcB, Plaiica, Salamis, and Mycale in 
Fernald's Selections. ) 

Mathematics. — Loomis's Algebra. 

Physical Training. — Lectures on health and habits of study. 

Oratory. — Lectures and individual training in Elocution ; Declamations. 

SECOND term. 

Mathematics. — Loomis's Geometry. 

Latin. — Horace, Odes, and Selections from Catullus ; Lectures on the Private 
Life and the Religion of the Romans, and on the Poets of the Republic 
and the Augustan Age; Exercises in Latin Composition. 

Greek. — Homer's Odyssey, Books IX, X, XI, (Merry's Edition,) with Lec- 
tures ; Goodwin's Moods and Tenses. 

Oratory. — Declamations. 

THIRD term. 

Mathematics. — Loomis's Trigonometry and Mensuration, Navigation and Sur- 
veying. 

Greek. — Demosthenes ( The PJulippics) ; Lectures ; Greek Composition. 

Latin. — Tacitus, Gemuinia and A^^ricola ; Terence, HeaiUontimorutnenos ; Ex- 
ercises in Writing Latin. 

Rhetoric AND Oratory. — Bascom and Morgan's "/"/^z'/ojo//;/ of Rhetoric ;'"' 
Declamations. 

SOPHOMORE YEAR. 

FIRST TERM. 

Latin. — Juvenal ; Horace, Satires and Epistles. 

Rhetoric and Oratory. — Earle's English Philology ; Prologue to the Canter- 
bury Tales ; Compositions ; Orations and individual training in Elocution. 

Natural History. — Elementary Biology, Lectures; Packard's and Tenney's 
Manuals. 

Greek. — Plato, ^/^/cgj and Crito ; Euripides, ^/<rfj//j ,■ Lectures. 

74 



« 



WILLI AMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS ("OLLEGE. 75 

SECOND TERM. 

Latin. — Selections from Cicero dc Offiiiis and the Tusrulan Dispu/ations : 

Cruttwell's Manual. 
Or, German. 

History. — Green's Short History of the Ent;lish I'eoplc ; Lectures. 
Mathematics. — Loomis's Spherical Geometry ami Spherical Trigonometry. 
Oratory. — Orations. 

thiki) term. 

History. — Eliot's United States; Lectures. 

Natural History. — Botany; Structure and Growth of Plants; Exercises in 

Analysis. 
Chemistry. — Lectures and Recitations. 
^L\TIIEMATICS. — Loomis's Analytical (ieomctry. 
Greek. — Aristophanes, the Birds. 

JUNIOR YEAR. 

FIRST TERM. 

History. — Historical Evidences of Christianity. 

Political Economy. — Perry's Political Economy. 

Physics, — Text-book and Lectures. 

Modern Languages. — German: Wjiitney's Grammar; Pruse Reading. 

French : Chardenal's Elementary Grammar. 
Rhetoric. — Composition and Debates. 

second term. 

Politics. — The Constitution of the United States ; the text and Lectures. 

Physics. — Text-book and Lectures. 

Moder.n Languages. — German: Grammar; Prose Reading; Composition. 
French : Armitage's Grammar ; Extracts from Prose Authors ; Composi- 
tion. 

Rhetoric. — Orations and Debates. 

third term. 

Astronomy. — Text-book (Loomis's) with Lectures and Practical Exercises. 

Physics. — Text-book and Lectures. 

Modern Languages. — German : Schiller, Egmonf s Leben. French : Extracts 

from Prose writers ; French Comedies. 
Rhetoric. — Compositions. 

SENIOR YEAR. 

KIRST term. 

Anatomy. — Lectures. 



O 



76 WILLIAMSTOWN AND WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

Physiology. — Huxley's I^essons ; Illustrated Lectures. 

Philosophy. — Hopkins' Outline Study of Man ; Lectures on the History of 

Philosophy. 
Khetoric and Oratory. — Arnold's Manual of English Literature ; Essays 

and Orations ; Individual training in Elocution (continued through the 

year). 
IvOGic. — Jevons's Lessons in Logic, 
Astronomy. — Lectures. 
Theology. — Vincent, On the Catechisin, 
Elective Studies. 

second term. 

Philosophy. — Hopkins's Outline Study of Man ; Hopkins's Moral Science. 
Rhetoric. — Manual of English Literature; Readings and Essays. 
Theology. — Vincent continued. 
Elective Studies. 

third term. 

Geology. — Dana's Text-book and Lectures. 
Aesthetics. — Bascom's Lectures. 
Natural Theology. — Flint's Theism. 
Philosophy of Religion. — Butler's Analogy. 
Elective Studies. 



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